Extreme summer melt: Assessing the habitability and physical structure of rotting first-year Arctic sea ice
The response of Arctic sea ice to a warming climate includes decreases in extent, lower ice concentration, and reduced ice thickness. Summer melt seasons are lengthening with earlier melt onsets and later autumn freezeups. We believe this will likely lead to an increase in so-called “rotten ice” in the Arctic at the end of summer. This ice has experienced a long summer of melt, is fragile, difficult to work with, and has received little attention. Comprehensive information on its physical and microbiological properties does not exist. Our team is embarking on an ambitious field campaign in order to study this poorly-understood type of sea ice in the context of its microstructural properties and potential for habitability.
This project has two main objectives:
- Determination of the physical and microbial characteristics and microstructural evolution of sea ice exposed to severe melt
- Exploration of the influence of biogenic particles such as sea ice algae, bacteria and polymer gels on the melting behavior of sea ice. This research will develop and apply state-of-the-art microbiological, molecular, biogeochemical and geophysical techniques to examine the character and evolution of natural Arctic sea ice at the end of the melt season at field sites near Barrow, Alaska.
This project will assess:
- Ice physical characteristics (ice density, salinity, permeability, albedo, and microstructure) using standard and novel microscopy and X-ray computed tomography techniques
- Ice algal and bacterial characteristics (abundance, activity, biomass, productivity and diversity) using epifluorescence and confocal microscopy, flow cytometry and massively parallel taq sequencing techniques
- Polymer gel characteristics (abundance, composition, gel carbon biomass, and size) using in situ microscopy, flow cytometry and confocal microscopy techniques
- The relationship between biogenic particles and ice physical characteristics, in particular microstructural properties for melted and intact ice samples using image analysis and correlative statistical methods.
The Team
Karen Junge Project PI Microbiologist Bio coming soon! | Bonnie Light Co-I Principal Physicist Bio & Interview | Monica Orellana Co-I Biological Oceanographer Bio coming soon! | Carie Frantz Affiliate Geobiologist Bio & Interview | Shelly Carpenter SuperTech Micro/Molecular Biologist Bio & Interview |
Videos
The wonderful APL outreach folks have produced some videos about us and our work, check them out! Link to APL YouTube Channel